We’re fortunate to have a room dedicated to the local history collection. It contains so much interesting material that I am frankly bitter that I don’t actually have family roots here; I just live here. Here’s some of what is available:

In the general stacks:
• A global genealogical tour! I counted books on 10 different ethnicities, in addition to guides about general research, preserving documents, writing family histories and conducting oral-history interviews.
• The township’s old Field Books, listing property lots, their owners and tax assessments. Because of them, I know my house was built in 1914 and the tax assessor valued it at $3,400. (It is worth more today, at least for now.)

In the local history room:
• Microfilms for our local weekly, starting in 1877. (They’re only partially indexed, alas, but there are also dozens of clipping files arranged by subject.)
• Boxes and boxes of document collections about local groups, from the township council to Boy Scouts.
• Personal memoirs.
• Microfilmed editions of the Social Register.
• A survey of architecturally significant buildings.

Find of the Day:
A slim volume containing bound copies of The Stroller, a sublimely bratty weekly magazine from the mid-1920s. The Stroller specialized in breathless details of who in town was marrying whom, where the beautiful people were going on vacation and which prominent townspeople (unnamed) had fallen off the wagon again.

Gossip is eternal; so are the joys of research. I hope everyone else has as much fun digging as I did.